York School Board weighs school repairs, improvements

YORK — The York County School Board during a work session Monday discussed the timing of school repairs, renovations and expansions after years of delaying repairs to hold down expenses.

Mark Tschirhart, associate director for capital plans and projects for the York County School Division, laid out changes to the school division's 10-year facilities master plan for fiscal years 2014-2023.

School Board member Mark Medford focused his attention on a plan to split an expansion at Waller Mill Elementary School, located in upper York County, into two phases with the first phase starting in fiscal year 2016.

Tschirhart said the project to expand Waller Mill has been delayed several times because of low enrollment but that the aging building is "in need of work." He said Waller Mill has no gymnasium and needs heating and air conditioning improvements as well as repairs to the ceiling.

A new plan would cut an addition of nine new classrooms down to four and add a new gymnasium as well as HVAC repairs in fiscal year 2016. Tschirhart said the change would reduce the cost of the project from $6.84 million to $5.04 million. An additional six classrooms at Waller Mill will be included in the facilities plan for fiscal year 2021 in case of a future spike in enrollment.

Medford worried that work at Waller Mill had already been delayed many times and asked if the project could be move up a year to 2015.

Tschirhart said there were several other construction projects scheduled for 2015 including improvements at Magruder and Bethel Manor elementary schools and that he didn't "feel they could put another project in 2015."

Medford said Magruder and Bethel Manor are newer than Waller Mill and asked if those buildings were deteriorating faster than Waller Mill.

Superintendent Eric Williams said staff could re-evaluate those projects in terms of age and condition of the buildings to see if it made sense to move the Waller Mill project up a year and delay another project.

Other changes to the facilities plan included accelerating HVAC and roof repairs at Grafton Bethel Elementary and metal roof repairs at Magruder Elementary from fiscal years 2017 and 2021 to 2014. Plans for a new elementary school were pushed back from fiscal year 2015 to 2018 due to lower enrollment projections.